Journal

I'm Nina, a photographer, film maker and forever wanderer. Passionate about nature, the great outdoors and all of life's adventures. This is the place where I keep all my 'field notes'

The Cutting Patch

When you talk about having an allotment or a patch of ground to grow things, you instinctively assume it's all about the produce, living with the land......the 'Good Life' so to speak, which to some extent you wouldn't be wrong and to be honest, if you rent the land from the council then it's pretty much what you are expected to do or use it for.

But I really love flowers.

So when we acquired the little bit of soil to 'grow things' last year I really really wanted to incorporate some kind of cutting patch in to it......with out the nasty tap on the shoulder telling us that we weren't growing enough edibles.

So intermingled with the regular eating peas we have canes stretching up to the sky engulfed by sweet peas - I've been really lucky with these this year where I know others have not - nasturtiums cover an old bit of fence, violas are dotted in between 'everything' snap dragons beside the raspberries to encourage bees and pollination, calendula for their healing powers (I've got to look into that a a bit more thoroughly) poppies......just because and verbena and dahlia for pretty much the same reason.

None take up too much space and we still grow the veg, but I think having the flowers - some of which are edible - add that little twist of pretty for me that makes the whole adventure just a bit more enjoyable and a little less laborious......for me anyhow.

I've been playing with a new camera today (Nikon D7000 with a 50mm lens) experimenting with aperture *phew* the mind boggles, but I'm pretty happy with the overall effect and the way the colours zing.

My Sony a200 is a great little camera, but I was using it more as a point and shoot - even for a dslr. The only technical side to it I think I ever did was to adjust the exposure depending on the light and composition of a picture.

The Nikon on the other hand is totally blowing my mind away at the possibilities - I think I may be fried come the weekend if I take on any more information.

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ps. Thank you for all your emails and messages from my previous post - I need to contact ispot.org as suggested by so many of you......thank you......and I've been checking up on our little moth caterpillar friend each day, but this morning......he was gone. I'm hoping he has wriggled off somewhere to do his mothy thing and has not been eaten by a bird as I'd really like to see the whole process through.

I promise to keep you updated and if I find anything more out. Also to Paula and Annie a very special thank you for doing some research for me - I'll try and email later.